NMDPRA expands database to cover crude oil inventory

The Federal Government has announced plans to establish a reliable database to determine the appropriate tariff methodology for the country’s transportation and bulk storage of crude oil and natural gas.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, the Authority Chief Executive (ACE) of Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), Mr Farouk Ahmed, stated this in a statement by Kimchi Apollo, General Manager, Corporate Communications, NMDPRA, on Sunday in Abuja.

According to the statement, Ahmed revealed this at the 2022 Petroleum Liquid Inventory Reconciliation Exercise held from February 6 to 10 in Lagos.

He said the exercise involved the NMDPRA, Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, Crude Oil and Gas Export Companies, the Central Bank of Nigeria, and the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI).

Represented by Mr Ogbugo Ukoha, Executive Director of Distribution Systems, Storage, and Retailing Infrastructure (DSSRI), Ahmed said the expanded data ecosystem would cover petroleum liquid volumes evacuated by trucking, barging and pipelines.

“It will include a data system on terminal receipt volumes and terminal stock records, crude oil inventory records per company, per terminal, and quantities delivered to and received into refineries.

“It will also include quantities evacuated to other midstream storage facilities, export permit volumes, as well as actual export volumes per company, per terminal,” he said.

On the reconciliation exercise, the NMDPRA Boss said it was scheduled to establish and authenticate common data on midstream statistics relating to crude oil, condensates, natural gas and its derivatives.

He said the reconciled data would provide the basis for the administration of petroleum liquid supply licenses and guide the appraisal of permits, authorisations and approvals issued in the midstream sector relating to petroleum transportation, storage and exports.

“This reconciliation will benefit our stakeholders because the dataset will also be of interest for the NEITI audit, OPEC questionnaire and Joint Oil Data Initiative. It will also assist the National Assembly in its oversight function.

“Similarly, it can be used by security agencies for investigations and the Federal Ministry of Finance for monitoring the repatriation of export proceeds and royalties remittance by exporters of crude oil and natural gas,” he said.

Ahmed said the authority, as the custodian of the petroleum products data bank, would continue to provide credible, reliable data for all petroleum operations in the country.

The Petroleum Industry Act 2021 (PIA) mandates the NMDPRA to periodically reconcile data on crude oil terminal receipts, exports, refinery delivery, oil and gas transportation, and other related statistics that are of interest to the federation as this directly affects royalties being remitted.